elluminea

There is now a paladin ability called "Hand of Salvation" that reduces the target's threat by something like 20% over 10 seconds. Blessing is gone, but he may not be asking for that.

 

Tyrian

Whats a good mod to let me filter my buffs? In 25 mans, having 3+ lines of buffs is just way too distracting and cluttered. I only want to see things that directly affect me (aka, make things like Ancestral rage, trueshot aura invisable)?

 

Dustwhisper

Though probably better asked in the UI forums I would suggest Satrina's buff frames as they are extremely customizable =)

 

Kaincael

Yeah, but has anyone actually tested it?

I know it USED to be an arcane-only-hit talent, but... who knows.

 

Pheroz

By the same token, you could ask if the talent Arcane Focus increased your fishing skill be 3 points. Sure, the tooltip says nothing about fishing, but 'has anyone tested it'? Come on.

Let's not spread misinformation for no reason. The talent specifies only arcane spells. Unless someone is prepared to provide evidence that contradicts that, theres no reason not to take it at face value.

 

PSGarak

The scripting system has been intentionally butchered to stop botting since 2.0. In short, no. Writing a macro such a macro is not possible*. Unlike most such macro requests this one wouldn't actually break the ToS, since it's just a whisper, but if he had a macro or mod to auto-respond with no user input that would be a bannable offense.

*It turns out the macro system is restricted while in-combat only. While it might be possible to write this macro, it would only be useable OOC. This would have been useful back when Salv was a blessing, but alas.

http://sig.gamerdna.com/quizzes/INFL...erks/Garak.png

 

Meghane

Here are my questions yet again. I ask them and never even get attempts from others to answer them as they immediately seem to get pushed back behind several questions that are all about raiding, mod/macro questions and/or general raid mechanics. This thread is already on its way to a maga-thread, so why isn't there like a simple question/answer for each raiding, especially since no one seems to want to ask their simple raid spec question in their respective raid spec threads, one for PvE that isn't raiding like leveling techniques, race choice, and general mage concerns before the level cap and one for anything that doesn't fit into those, like mage specific UI mods/macros, and maybe more. I guess its not my call, but it seems to me like it would be more effective, anyway...

I know that rooting effects have been changed so that they are broken after an amount of damage has been done, but how does this work exactly. Will frost nova last until the mob is taken down to 60% health, 40% if glyphed, or will it take an amount of damage equal to 40/60% of its health. An example of what I mean by the former would be like you nova the target when its at 50% health, and though you have the glyph, you only have a maximum of 10% more health you can take away before it breaks, or you nova a target below 40% health already so nova takes no effect or will at least break if any damage is done, even the smallest bit. For the latter, would it be damage equal to 40/60% of the target's current health or would it always be a percentage of the maximum health of the mob. I know it may seems like something you could reliably deduce yourself, and I could tell you which way I would think it would work, but I don't know for certain and would like to.

Also, does anyone know the percent of health equal to the amount of damage that a frostbitten target can take before it breaks. My inkling would be that it is less than the 40% that frost nova has due to its shorter duration, but does anyone know for certain the exact percentage? (I know Roywyn said that most effects that break due to damage early, i.e. fear, entangling roots, frostbite, etc. are capped at 40% at most, but he didn't seem certain).

Also, Exactly how long is the window where an ignite can get munched...as a frost mage I understand perfectly how two spells that hit at basically the exact same time could ignite munch (one cast/one instant cast right after), like in a shatter combo. I've heard, though not really reliably, that it can happen after DB, BW and scorch. How does anything except like a scorch/fire blast (don't know why you'd ever do that) work since scorch has no travel time, right? (I've heard that scorch/pyroblast can ignite munch). I don't see how it could work after any instant cast either since I thought the GCD would basically close any window for ignite munching to occur, yet I've heard that ignite munching can work with the new firestarter talent (DB or BW followed by an instant FS). So basically for the ignite to munch do they have to both hit in a time frame or just both be cast in one or will it happen if two spells crit in between ignite ticks (in less then 2 seconds) or what?

And does casting living bomb cause combustion to stack another 10% chance to crit and can any part of LB's DoT portion crit and thereby eat up a combustion charge as soon as cast or anytime before the explosion goes off?

Thanks in advance for any answers.

/giveup Looks like i'll have to test this myself

 

Ellenia

This doesn't really go in the Simple Questions / Simple Answers category but I'm putting it here for lack of a better place at the moment.

I did some testing of mirror image today with a feral druid friend of mine to see what happens when mirror image is cast at various threat levels.

The Test

The testing method was as follows (All threat tracked with an up to date version of Omen):
The feral druid pulled a level 79 Wolf and generated as much threat on it as possible without killing it. I'd polymorph it to get it back to full and then we repeated the process until he had about 100k threat.

Next, I alternated frostbolts and polymorphs on it until I was at a desired % of his threat and then I'd cast mirror image from range.

The Results

• 93% of tank threat: Images did not pull aggro
• 99% of tank threat (1100 threat behind the tank): Images did pull aggro
• 101% of tank threat: Images did pull aggro
• 103% of tank threat: Images did pull aggro
• 119% of tank threat: Images did pull aggro

On the final test we did, which was where I was at 99% of his threat, he had about 139k threat on the mob when I popped the images. After the images pulled aggro, he growled which immediately brought him to 179k threat. This means that the images somehow gained around 40k threat over what I had on the target. Very odd.

These tests leave me with a lot of questions still.

1. Where did that 40k jump come from?
2. Why did the images pull aggro when cast even at 99% of tank threat? (I'd like to repeat this test though just to make sure nothing happened to cause it to be 100% at the last second)
3. Is the behavior consistent both on the first cast of the images on a pull and all subsequent casts?

Final Notes:

• All tests were done on the same mob.
• In all cases where the images pulled aggro, it was immediate upon cast.
• The mirror image opening fireblast crit for a maximum of 439 damage. In all cases, threat as recorded by Omen was such that this could not cause a crossover of a boundary condition of 99%->100%, 109%->110%, or 129%->130%

Edit: Turns out 179-139 is actually 40 and not 50. Who knew.

 

marsui

I've been reading the Frost fire bolt thread and I notice a mention that Hit isn't necessarily the best thing to increase your dps and spell power is weighted slightly more. I've always understood you should cap hit first.

Should I really not go too crazy about capping hit first?

I'm sitting at 8% hit right now, and I have 3/3 EP, specced 0/53/18.

 

Arantes

Things change. On a point for point basis hit is no longer the best in every case before hit cap.

However, some people have argued in the FFB thread and I share this approach, capping hit removes the chance of being screwed by the RNG and means having more predictable, reliable performances. This isn't a point-for-point objective value but a subjective one that depends on your person/playstyle. No chance to miss means no chance scorch won't refresh or that your Pyro won't hit when you get your valuable hot streak procs.

 

Roywyn

Hit becomes better with better gear. Garbage gear makes hit garbage.

As for the value of hit - none of the simulations take the loss of raid DPS into account when Scorch drops off.
You could calculate it by tweaking Simcraft settings for it, but it's a pretty large DPS to restack it.

You cast 2 extra scorches and the raid loses 10% spell crit for 3-6 seconds. It's quite a bit.


First of all, thanks a lot for the great testing, that's a lot of insight there.

By the way, going from 139k to 179k threat is 40k more, not 50k more

I'd love to see that test repeated with around 50k bear threat and perhaps 200k bear threat (and the caster at 99%).
Pop images, they will aggro, have the bear taunt them back and check his threat afterwards.

We'd then see whether the images gain 50k threat over the caster or a fixed percentage.
That would help us understand the threat jump better (at least the "how", not the "why").

You more or less answered your second question already though.
The images pull aggro because they gain some extra threat which puts them above the 130% ranged threat limit.
We need some more testing to understand the numbers fully though, but it seems very likely.

(On second though, 179k/139k is less than 130% threat, less than the ranged threat threshld. Odd.)

The Blue Bar and you - the complete Fire Mage 2.4 mana compendium: http://elitistjerks.com/658230-post3191.html

DPS spec and class comparison in Naxxramas gear: http://code.google.com/p/simulationc...i/SampleOutput

And [Timbal's Focusing Crystal] doesn't proc on AM.
Neither does [The Egg of Mortal Essence] since 3.1.

 

Elnaith

Just started on a Mage (formerly Warlock) and after seeing
20,000 Experience A Minute By Doomc
A video on Frost AoE grinding, im wondering...could something like that be used the moment you learn Blizzard? Havent had much experience with Mages, basically just wondering how viable Forst is early on.

 

Brandox

Before I ask these questions, I think I have seen a discussion about them previously and I apologize if I am being redundant.

As every mage should know, current stats follow the hit>spellpower>crit/haste mold. My question is about the crit/haste ratio. Each % haste is an overall dps upgrade and benefits moreso where we are forced to have dynamic movement. Crit however is reliant on RNG and already benefits greatly from raid buffs.

Haste seemingly has no "cap", unless we're talking 1.5 sec ffbs.

Crit can already reach high amounts due to raidwide buffs. With a base 25% crit mixed with Molten Armor, AI, Moonkin Aura, and Imp Scorch our crit rate would sit somewhere around 45-50%. In my head, it seems as though the higher the crit%, the less benefit you receive from it.

Does crit have a "cap", or at least an optimal raid buffed number to shoot for?

 

Nemantopia

This is true for any stat, it's the rate of benefit loss that matters. The reason hit has a cap is because we can realistically hit it with gear...it's 17%, and after talents and buffs varies but is feasible to gear for. Crit and haste do technically have caps...but to ever see this barring a 50% crit + shatter-bonus is practically impossible, and even that situation is just theoretical. Roywyn posted somewhere [can't find it] what the crit values that Fireball, Frostbolt, Frostfirebolt, and I think even arcane builds 'stabilize', in the sense that your DPS isn't such a slave to the RNG and is more consistent. Crit is never BAD, but to my understanding it's still the red-headed step child as far as gear rating is concerned, taking somewhere around 5k spellpower to be something to consciously shoot for.

Take your crit talents, get all the crit buffs you can, but when gearing the 'mold' still pretty much holds true.

 

LiquidHAL

First off, he gets 20,000 XP a minute while doing the pulls. That is not counting downtime, which is deceptive. He's certainly not getting 1.2 million xp/hour over any significant length of time. After drinking and looting it's hardly better than questing. Not to mention the lack of rep, which you'll want at some point.

A long long time ago that was the fastest way to level. That's how I leveled my mage, back when Maraudon was first released and you could AOE the slimes there pretty easy. Now that it can crit, Blizzard does a fair bit more damage so it has even gotten a bit easier. However, with the leveling changes implemented a while back, efficient questing is faster . Outland also has a general lack of viable AOE spots after hellfire penninsula. It's good to have a build where you can do a few quick AOE pulls while questing (many opportunities in Northrend) but I wouldn't recommend trying to level solely via AOE. It gets tedious. No rep, no quest rewards, and on a high population servers you constantly get interrupted by other people questing in your AOE spot.

 

Gohei27

Do mirror images get reduced threat from our talents?

This could be part of the reason why images are pulling off the tank if you are close to the tank's threat.

http://armory.mmo-champion.com.nyud....37170zyBei.png

 

Farenvinvi

I was wondering about the overall DPS difference from the change to scorch. Is 15% DPS increase better than +10 crit%? It seems like it would be.

My other question- is the instapyro talent worth going for? I know the spell coefficiant on pyro is rediculously low for it's mana cost; it seems almost like a instant, high mana fireball that hits maybe 500 more. Seems like it would be much too mana inefficient.

EDIT: Spelling ftw.

 

Azrayne

How is hit/crit rounded off?

If I'm shooting for hit cap with EP and no outside buffs (so 368 hit for 14%) and I have an amount that gives me 13.50%, will this be rounded up and allow me to hit 100% of the time? Or will I still miss one out of every 200 spells? What about 13.25% or 13.75%? If it's rounded up or down, at what point is that done?

 

Pheroz

it's not rounded at all. If your at 99.99% chance to hit, you still have a chance to miss.

 

Faxmonkey

My first *guess* and it would be only a guess, is that images are meant to split your threat between them -- 33.33% each, but it sounds like perhaps they're accidentally getting 133.33% each. That would seem to make the math work in order to explain all of your results -- being slightly off your 40k gain mark (being more like a 45k gain mark) but consistent with all your "pulled aggro here, but no here" marks.

 

Roywyn

That sounds like a really really good explanation.

Assuming your images are set to 133.33% of your threat, the aggro threshold then is 97.5% at range and 82.5% in melee.

So, working hypothesis for now:
If you're above 97.5% tank threat, your images will spawn with 130% and pull aggro at range.
If you're above 82.5% tank threat and in melee range, your images will spawn with 110% and pull aggro.

That would need some testing preferable just above and below those marks to confirm that they pull/don't pull aggro.

The Blue Bar and you - the complete Fire Mage 2.4 mana compendium: http://elitistjerks.com/658230-post3191.html

DPS spec and class comparison in Naxxramas gear: http://code.google.com/p/simulationc...i/SampleOutput

And [Timbal's Focusing Crystal] doesn't proc on AM.
Neither does [The Egg of Mortal Essence] since 3.1.

 

Ellenia

I like that theory. If that is the case, then a little simple math tells us that the threshold at which they will pull aggro (from range) is at 97.5% of the tank's threat.

That should be easy enough to test.

 

Ellenia

Ok, I just tested it.

At 97% of tank threat, the mirror images did not pull aggro from range.
At 98% of tank threat, they did.

Good call on that faxmonkey.

 

PSGarak

Get that reported through official channels. The precision of that result gives it much more utility to blizzard's bug team on isolating the effect, and fixing it if it is a bug.

http://sig.gamerdna.com/quizzes/INFL...erks/Garak.png

 

Ellenia

I've been planning on doing so but I hadn't had a chance until this morning. It's reported now here:
World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> [Bug] Mirror Image-with precise test results